Land Disputes Threaten Indigenous Peoples of Rural Brazil
Uirá Garcia The news began to circulate at the height of the holiday season. On Christmas Day, it emerged that an angry mob in Humaitá, Amazonas, had set fire to offices and equipment belonging to two government institutions: Funai, the National Foundation of the Indian; and Funasa, the National Health Foundation. Cars, boats and motorcycles were destroyed. Two days later, nearly 300 people from the town invaded villages in the Tenharim Marmelos Indigenous Reserve, setting houses alight and destroying the toll booths operated by the Tenharim Indians on a stretch of the Trans-Amazonian Highway that crosses their land. This was the beginning of a series of events which is still underway in the region.

Uirá Garcia is an anthropologist. He holds a Ph.D in anthropology from the University of São Paulo, and currently works as a professor at the University of Campinas, where he is working on his post-doctorate. He has worked with the Awá-Guajá people since 2006. The article was translated into English for LAB by Tom Gatehouse. The article was first published (in Portuguese) in O Estado de S. Paulo
The UK-based charity, Survival International, has long campaigned on behalf of the Awá and should be given much of the credit for the judicial decision to evict settlers from their reserve. More information can be found here.